The High Cost of Car Culture for Undocumented Immigrants
“In America, everyone pays a hefty fee for sprawl. But the country’s car-centric culture is particularly burdensome for immigrants—especially those without papers. For them, to drive or not to drive can be not just a question of convenience, but of survival. And it has no easy answers. Over the past few decades, more immigrants have bypassed the dense, transit-rich urban hubs where they used to settle for more sprawling metros in the Sunbelt that offer jobs and affordable living. They’ve also increasingly taken to the suburbs. These shifting settlement patterns mean that more and more immigrants rely on cars to go to work, drop their kids at school, see the doctor, and buy groceries. Most states don’t allow undocumented immigrants to apply for driver’s licenses. Doing so would condone their illegal presence in the country, immigration hard-liners have argued. The first consequence of this stance for immigrants is lost productivity for workers: Long commutes on unreliable public transport can mean fewer work hours or even unemployment. But by driving without a license, immigrants stand to lose much more. Besides a few hundred dollars in fines, they risk deportation.”